


Suffer A Witch To Live

by respoftw



Series: 2018 Hurt/Comfort Bingo [12]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fire, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Witch Hunts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 01:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15853092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: The people of MX5-4TG were suffering from a blood borne virus that caused seizures and hallucinations in its carriers.  In their great wisdom, the people of MX5-4TG thought that the affected members of their village had been cursed by witches.The people of MX5-4TG were idiots.





	Suffer A Witch To Live

The people of MX5-4TG were suffering from a blood-borne virus that caused seizures and hallucinations in its carriers.In their great wisdom, the people of MX5-4TG thought that the affected members of their village had been cursed by witches.

 The people of MX5-4TG were idiots.

Rodney would have told them that if they hadn’t gagged him with a foul-tasting rag.The rag was stuffed into his mouth with seven winds of itchy twine wrapped around his head to keep it in.The head villager had counted each length as they wrapped it, each additional wind pulling the previous ones tighter until he was sure he could feel the rough, homespun material cutting into his cheeks.The number seven seemed to hold some religious significance for these people.There were seven additional lengths wrapped around his wrists and ankles too.He knew that the corners of his mouth had been split but he was hoping they hadn’t broken the skin anywhere else.It seemed such an inconsequential thing to be worrying about when the pyre on which they were planning to burn him was looming on the horizon.

The witch hunt had been in full swing when Rodney and his team had stepped through the gate onto MX5-4TG.They hadn’t walked much more than half a mile from the gate when they came across the burned corpse; strung up on a tree with a symbol that neither Teyla or Ronon recognised written on a piece of cloth tied around the corpse’s neck.

 Really, that should have been their cue to leave but they needed a stable source of grain and more than one world had pointed them in this direction.None of them had mentioned that the people here were batshit crazy so, despite Rodney’s best attempt at insisting they leave, they had continued on.Rodney had pulled out the digital camera he carried on all missions out of his vest and taken a picture of the symbol before they went.The linguists would be frothing at the mouth to decipher the symbol and he was careful to zoom in and crop the photo so that no hint of the burnt corpse was visible.

 Now, with the foul gag and biting twine covering his face and the pyre on which he was about to be burnt coming into view, Rodney figured he could save them a job.

 The same symbol was inked on parchment, strung around his own neck with the same itchy twine that they had used everywhere else.

 It meant witch.

 

* * *

 

 

“I thought these people were supposed to be friendly.”John didn’t sound worried but Rodney could tell from the way that he gripped his P-90 that he was on high alert.

 If their first clue to leave this world was the blackened corpse dangling from a tree, their second really should have been when every door and window slammed shut as they walked the short distance from the edge of the village to the town square.

 Matronly women pulled small children into their huts by the arm while rough, hardy men glared at them silently from a safe distance.  

 “I have heard the same tales as you,” Teyla said, sounding wary.“Perhaps all will become clear when we speak to someone in charge?”

 “Maybe,” John agreed.“But let’s all make sure that we’re prepared for the worst.Chewie, you got your gun handy?”

 Ronon grunted his assent.Rodney thought it was a stupid question.When _didn’t_ Ronon have his gun handy?He wouldn’t be surprised if the big lummox slept with it under his pillow.Still, he couldn’t blame John for being on edge.Fumbling with the LSD slightly, he popped open the button of his thigh holster, ensuring easier access to the handgun held inside.John nodded approvingly at his action and Rodney tried to ignore the warm, pleased feeling that flushed through him.No matter how impressive he was in other, more cerebral areas, John’s approval when it came to the more military, physical aspects of his job never failed to make him flush.

Their readiness never came to anything though.After arriving in the eerily silent town square, two men approached them cautiously.From the robes they wore, Rodney pegged them as whatever passed for leaders on this podunk world.His intuition proved to be spot on as the two men introduced themselves as such.  Rodney didn't register their names, didn't need the detail clogging up valuable space in his brain.  In his mind, he dubbed them villager 1 and villager 2. 

 “We would normally welcome such a meeting,” Villager 1, the eldest leader, said, “but you have come upon us during a time of hardship.”

 “Does this hardship have anything to do with the burned corpse we saw on our way here?” Rodney asked, earning himself a jab in the ribs from John’s pointy elbow. 

 “A necessary evil,” the leader said, his lips thin with distaste.“A dark time is upon our people.”

 Teyla nodded serenely.  “The Wraith - -“

 “This darkness is greater than the Wraith.” The leader cut cross Teyla’s words with an austere voice.

 “Nothing’s worse than the Wraith,” Ronon said. 

Rodney agreed and was just about to say so when a cry of anguish at one of the nearby huts interrupted the conversation and the two robed men hurried in that direction.Rodney and the rest of his team followed them, all six of them arriving at the hut at the same time to find a young woman - a girl, really, she couldn’t have been more than fourteen - thrashing on the floor.Rodney knew what a grand mal seizure looked like, had seen Jeannie suffer through enough of them, and he reacted instinctually, muscle memory kicking in.After clearing the area around the girl, he manoeuvred her onto her side and into the recovery position, stripping his jacket off to place under her head in an effort to stop her head hitting the cold floor and causing her damage.

 “How long has she been seizing?” he demanded, looking at what he assumed was the girl’s mother.

 “You - you - “ the woman raised her arm and pointed at him, her eyes wide with horror. “ _You did this_.”

 “Excuse me?” Rodney snapped.“What do you mean I did this?I only just got here.I - “

 The groggy sounds of the girl coming back to consciousness drew Rodney’s attention away from the hysterical woman and he felt for the girl's pulse, talking as soothingly as he could manage.He remembered how confused and ashamed Jeannie often felt after one of her seizures.  He could smell that the girl's bladder had emptied, he remembered how much Jeannie had hated that, how much she had hated all of it before they found the right mix of meds for her and it was those memories - an older brother caring for his frightened, angry younger sister - that guided him at that moment.

At least, they did until he found himself hoisted back by his shoulders, a man that he hadn’t seen - possibly the girl’s father - locking his arms under Rodney’s armpits and completing the Nelson hold by locking his hands around the back of Rodney’s neck.Completely restricted, Rodney yelled out in shock.

 “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?”

The man didn’t answer and Rodney heard the comforting sounds of his team raising their weapons.Unfortunately, that sound was followed by that of at least a dozen other weapons, all of which were now pointed at Rodney and his team.A group of villagers had surrounded them while Rodney had been busy with the girl and while their level of technology couldn’t come close to competing with theirs, the members of any off-world team on Atlantis were very well aware of just how dangerous muskets and bows could be.

John’s face twitched in barely contained anger as he gestured for Ronon and Teyla to lower their weapons.“Easy,” he said, lowering his own P-90.“We’re here in peace, ok?Dr McKay was just trying to help that girl.What do ya say we all just sit down and talk this out, huh?”

The crack of a musket handle over John’s head was just as much a surprise to Rodney as it was to John.He yelled out in wordless anger as John crumpled to the floor, blood already welling at the back of his head.The man who had hold of him pulled him back out the way and Rodney was so busy fighting the hold that he missed what happened to Ronon and Teyla but the next thing he knew, he and the girl who had suffered the seizure were being dropped onto a wooden cart, their hands, and ankles secured in rough twine.As the cart started to move away from the hut, Rodney craned his neck trying to see in, trying to figure out what the hell had happened.All he saw were three bodies lying on the ground, a second group of men stripping them of weapons.Rodney started to squirm harder, pulling more forcefully at his bonds and the next thing he saw was the handle of a musket coming towards him...then he didn’t see anything at all.

 

* * *

 

 

The trial - if he could call it that - was over in seconds.Seven villagers saying yay to the accusation of witchcraft.Both the girl’s seizures and Rodney’s ‘curing’ of them were deemed witchcraft, punishable by death.

The gag was already wound around his head by this point but it didn’t stop Rodney trying to let his utter contempt for these people’s stupidity show.All he succeeded in was letting the twine that was wrapped around his head bite in deeper.

And so, the pyre - stake and all - drew ever closer and Rodney had no idea if John, Ronon and Teyla were even alive.He swung between surety that they were still alive and seconds away from mounting a rescue and the certainty that they were dead.In those certainty moments, he only hoped that their deaths had been quicker than his was going to be.

The cart arrived at its destination and rough hands grabbed for him, hauling him and the girl out.  Rodney and the girl - god, he didn’t even know her name - were to be burned together it seemed.Rodney wriggled and kicked out with his tied feet as much as he could as the men of the village manhandled him from the cart to the waiting stake but a fist to the temple left him boneless, his resistance gone.

The fist to the head so soon after the musket hit from earlier was probably not a good thing.Rodney felt like something had got knocked loose in his head and he must have lost time somewhere in the middle because one minute he was being lifted on to the pile of wood and the next he was shackled to the post by iron manacles that closed around his twine bound hands.He could feel the body of the girl behind him, manacled to the other side of the stake and he wished that he could reassure her that everything would be fine, that it wouldn’t hurt, that the smoke would asphyxiate them long before the flames could touch them.It seemed like something John would say if he were in this situation.Except he’d find a way to save both himself and the girl, never letting them get here in the first place. 

 God, he hoped John wouldn’t have to find his blackened corpse hanging from a tree. 

 Nausea crept over him at the thought and it was only the knowledge that he would suffocate on it that kept the bile down.

 He lost time again, blinking through a haze of pain and black spots to see a pitcher of flame being lowered downwards to catch at the kindling that surrounded the stake.

Another long blink of blackness, this time clearing to hear muffled screaming and sobbing from behind him.Confused, he tried to turn around to see what all the fuss was about but the movement caused him to blink out again.

_Blink._

A growing heat licking at his lower extremities, sending flashes of pain where the bright heat got to close.

_Blink._

The bright heat was closer now.There was also a lot of smoke in the air and Rodney felt a detached sense of dismay that most of it was being dispersed by the wind.He couldn’t quite grasp why he should feel like that and before he could parse it together he - -

_Blink._

There was a lot of pain now. And another, deeper voice screaming.Rodney thought it might be his own.

_Blink._

A ship appeared from nowhere in the sky, the rear hatch opening to let out a torrent of water which fell on him, dousing him in a cold that was so very different from the heat that he screamed in relief.

_Blink._

Hands on him, unwinding the twine from around his head.

_Blink._

Murmured comfort whispered against his skin as his head sagged on to a strong shoulder, unable to keep himself upright.Lips brushing against his hair.

_Blink._

The sharp retort of gunfire and the overwhelming agony when he was lifted on to a waiting stretcher.

_Blink._

The jumper.

_Blink._

John.Pain.John.

It was a long time before the darkness let up again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey there, sleeping beauty.”

Rodney opened his eyes to the harsh light of the infirmary and the absence of pain.John sat on a chair next to him, haggard with exhaustion and the workings of a beard decorating his face.

God, he was beautiful.

“Saved me,” Rodney mumbled, trying for a smile.“Was my turn.”

John helped him sit up, placed an ice chip in his mouth and Rodney moaned at how good it felt. 

“You can take all the turns from now on,” John said weakly.“I don’t ever want to have to - - Jesus, Rodney...if we had been even ten minutes later.Don’t do that again, ok?Just - - don’t.”

Rodney tried to work up some anger at that.It wasn’t like he meant to be confused for a witch (or was it a warlock) but he was too tired to do more than sound petulant.“Wasn’t my fault.They w’r idiots.No such thing as witches.” 

John swallowed hard.“I know, buddy.I know.Lemme get Carson, ok?He should check you over.You’ve been - - it’s been a long slog.”

Rodney stopped John from leaving by grabbing for his hand, using every ounce of strength he had left.“The girl?” he asked.“Ok?”

John’s smile turned from strained to fond in an instant.“Yeah, Rodney.She’s good.We got her out at the same time we got you.”

“Mmm, that’s good,” Rodney mumbled.“What about my legs?They hurt.Before.Don’t now.That’s probably not good, huh?”He knew he should be more concerned by that but the floaty lack of pain was nice and as long as the girl and John were ok he could live with anything.

John looked pained.“Your legs are - - we fixed them.It was - it didn’t look good for a while but Zelenka found the plans for a dermal regenerator in the database.He did good.”

That sounded like good news to Rodney.He’d have to give Zelempa - Zelezny -wow, his mind was fuzzy - Zelenka a raise.There was just one thing he didn’t understand.“Why are you so sad?” he asked John, his thumb rubbing a circle on John’s arm. 

John stared down at Rodney’s thumb, a million micro-expressions crossing his face.

“I’m not sad,” he eventually said.“Just...worried.”

“Bout me?”

John smiled.“Yeah, buddy.About you.”

“M’ok,” Rodney said, his eyes already feeling heavy.He didn’t know how much longer he could stay awake but it seemed vitally important that he finish this conversation first.“You saved me.”

“Almost didn’t,” John said, his voice tight.

“Almost’s don’t count,” Rodney insisted.Sleep was calling to him louder and louder with each second and he could feel himself slipping.“Saved me.Saved the girl.You’re the best.” Rodney closed his eyes and sighed happily.John _was_ the best.“Love you, John.”

Rodney thought he felt John squeeze his hand at that but he was already half asleep.Maybe he imagined the gentle press of lips against his and the murmured “love you too, Rodney”.

He hoped he hadn’t.He’d find out when he woke up again. 

 

_Blink._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the ‘Witch Hunt’ square of my H/C bingo card which you can see [here](https://respoftw.dreamwidth.org/19969.html#cutid1)
> 
> Please feel free to suggest which square I do next, I'm aiming for blackout!
> 
> This is my second time having poor Rodney tried for witchcraft....lol.


End file.
